


The Hollow Cake

by Liadt



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Matthew Shardlake Series - C. J. Sansom
Genre: Cake, Crack, Gen, Rated for swearing, cake!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-18 10:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14211537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liadt/pseuds/Liadt
Summary: Jack is naked and covered in cake. For once, it's not all the fault of the Master...(Mild spoilers for 'Sovereign')





	The Hollow Cake

**Author's Note:**

> Shardlake appears to have forgotten the last time he was covered in cake. I can't blame him;p

Shardlake didn't look happy, not that he ever does, but he had that particular 'we're in deep shit' expression, which is unique to him. Some might think he was unhappy because we were locked up in a room in a strange house, but they'd be wrong. Nor was it because we were chained to the wall. The manacles no doubt reminded him of the time he was in the tower. It was a time, which upset me too as his friend. I shudded at the memory.

“I wish I still had my robe to give you, Jack,” said Shardlake, assuming I was shivering with cold. 

“It's all right: the cake is keeping me warm,” I said.

“It's not a very thick layer.”

In case you thought I had a hot cake to eat, save for a cap, I was naked and covered in cake crumbs. And how did I come to be in this state? I'll tell you. It had been an ordinary day at Lincoln's Inn dealing with run of the mill cases. I had invited Shardlake over to my place to catch up with Tammy – it had been a while. When we had finished for the day, we were walking down the street when a cart drew up. There were a pair of arseholes in the back and, for no reason, they pelted us with cake. It wasn't normal cake for my clothes began to dissolve on contact. Frantically, I tried to brush the cake crumbs off for I feared my skin would be next. To my surprise, it didn't burn my skin or Shardlake’s clothes. The oddness of the situation meant that when the arseholes got off the cart and bundled us into to it, I was too confused to fight back. We were told to lie on the floor of the cart and keep quiet. I didn't argue, along with dangerous cake, they had swords. 

The cart rumbled over the uneven streets of London for an hour before we were ordered out. We had been taken to the rear of a big, town house. We walked across the courtyard and through a back door into a hall.

“We've got them, master,” shouted one of the men, up the hallway. 

“Here, before you catch your death,” said Shardlake, quietly, and gave me his lawyer's robe to wear. 

Out of a door came a well-fed man in a monk's habit. 

“A monk!” I said. It was unusual to see a man dressed like that after the dissolution. 

“Am I here because of my reformist past?” said Shardlake. He put an emphasis on 'past'.

“Reformist?” The monk blinked. “Ah, you think I work for the Bishop of Rome? No, it's merely an outfit I've taken a fancy to. You're the lawyer Shardlake?” He asked me. 

“I'm Shardlake, I gave Barak my lawyer's robe to wear. You can't have been very well informed, if you thought Barak was me. I don't get confused with many lawyers,” said Shardlake. 

“I wasn't really listening to my associate prattle on about suitable test subjects. I wanted to see the effect of Cryzon-5 bake technology would have on humans.”

“Cryzon what?” I said.

“The cake.” The monk pointed at a patch of crumbs stuck on my face. “I couldn't get the exact recipe off the Cryzons and I've been experimenting to find the right amount of bezinx to add. I haven’t got the strength right.”

“Too fucking right, you haven't. It took the clothes off my back and everywhere else!”

“Yet not your friend's, interestingly. If you would be so good as to take the robe off, I can analyse why it hasn't disintegrated.”

“Couldn't you just take a sleeve? You will give him something else to wear in exchange, won't you?” said Shardlake, which was sweet. I wasn't bothered about being naked as long as torture or execution wasn't involved. I handed the robe over.

“Good. Now, Lyster, if you'd fetch me a specimen jar.” One of the men scurried off. “If you're worried about him having no clothes...” The monk reached out, swept Shardlake's cap off his head and put it on mine. “There, not naked at all.” The monk gave a jolly chuckle. 

Lyster came back with a jar and the monk scraped some cake off my face into it. “Take them upstairs. I'll try another formulation on them later; hopefully, I will get the right result.” 

We were led upstairs to a room. Chains were hanging from fittings in the wall and we were chained together. Our guards left us and locked the door for good measure. The room was a handsome room to be jailed in. There was oak panelling, soft cushions out of our reach, two iron bound chests with carpet, a finely carved, stone fireplace and wall hangings. On the floor, where we were standing, was a wide rectangular area where the floorboards were darker than the rest. It was obvious to me a bed had once been here. A more unworldly man might question why there were fittings for chains in a bedroom, but I’d seen some sights working for Cromwell. It was a pity the bed was gone, as I could've done with a rest. 

With nothing better to do, we were discussing why we had been kidnapped. I said Rich was behind it and Shardlake disagreed. He thought if this had been designed to humiliate him, as suggested by the cake attack, Rich would have chosen a less bizarre method. Suddenly, there was a loud bang and the door was blown off its hinges. We ducked and covered our faces; flying splinters would do more damage than cake. When the dust settled, a girl came striding in. Instead of skirts, she wore a pair of tight breeches over hose and a doublet covered in brooches. 

“Hello, Battenberg, I've come to rescue you and your mate. I'm Ace, by the way,” said the girl, cheerily. 

“You don't seem surprised to see us covered in cake,” said Shardlake. I wasn't surprised by her attitude. A girl who blew up doors wasn't going to be alarmed by men covered in cake, naked or not.

“I've seen worse.” Ace winked at me.

“Do you know why we've been subjected to this, I don't know what to call it … ordeal?” asked Shardlake. 

“The Monk, the Professor tells me, likes to joke around.”

That was no answer for Shardlake; he needs to know the how and the why down to the last detail, as if knowing solves everything.

“We've been kidnapped and chained up as a joke?” I said. 

“You look like you've been in an extreme food fight, and you do look funny, if that's your kind of humour. The Monk's not working alone, there's this short arse...”

“Sir Richard Rich!” we chorused in unison.

“He did mean to humiliate me after all,” said Shardlake. 

“Is that his real name? Richey Rich sounds like a joke name, probably why the Monk teamed up with him,” said Ace. “The Monk wanted to test his stuff out and Rich wanted it to be used on you two. I don't know what you've done to him, but Rich doesn't like you very much.”

“I'm a lawyer and I got in the way of him avoiding his responsibilities as a landowner to his tenants and their neighbours. He doesn't care what squalor people live in as long as he can make money off them,” said Shardlake.

“I'm not surprised. Soon as I clocked him, I had him down as a scum bag,” said Ace.

“What does Rich hope to gain by joining forces with a mad, monkish baker?” said Shardlake.

“The opportunity to make you look silly for starters,” said Ace.

“He should have chosen something believable to happen to us. Who's going to believe any gossip that claims we've been pelted with cake which dissolved our clothes,” I said.

“Only one of you has lost your clothes.”

“Tales change in the telling,” said Shardlake.

“Even if they stick to the truth, it's a yarn that will send them to Bedlam. Cloth dissolving cake. Ridiculous. Rich must be losing it,” I said. 

“Or he's got an agenda which doesn't involve us. What could it be?” said Shardlake. 

Ace smiled. “You'd prefer to stay in chains than not know what's going on, wouldn't you?”

Shardlake looked embarrassed. Ace was right.

“I'd quite forgotten them,” said Shardlake. 

“You can't leave here while you're manacled to the wall,” said Ace and drew out a device from inside her jacket. “Not as impressive as a big pair of bolt cutters, but it does the job.” Ace took the device to our chains. It had a small, circular toothed blade and, when she pressed a button, it span into action and cut through the links with ease. Shardlake breathed a sigh of relief. Ace was wrong, it was one of the most impressive devices I'd ever seen.

We followed Ace out of the room and down the stairs. Lying unconscious halfway down the stairs was Rich.

“Is he all right?” said Shardlake.

I laughed. “He wouldn't care if your roles were reversed.”

Ace looked down. “He'll be OK, except for a thumping headache when he comes to. You won't be OK once you hear what he was plotting with the Monk.”

“We won't?” Shardlake was so intrigued he didn't pay attention to where he was walking and accidentally stood on Rich's hand. I smiled: Rich would have more than a headache, shame it wouldn't be more than a sore hand. Being higher up than we are, we'd never get away with laying a finger on Rich, ordinarily.

“He was plotting to kill the King! How bad is that?” said Ace.

“Oh,” said Shardlake.

“I expected more of a reaction,” said Ace, deflated.

“Shardlake doesn't like Henry very much. Neither do I.” 

“I don't care much about a fat bloke who offs his wives for made up reasons, either, but history can't be changed that much or so the Professor says. Not that, that Rich bloke would make a better replacement.”

“Rich, king!?” There Ace did get the reaction she wanted, as we reached the ground floor. 

“I know he's ambitious, but how?” said Shardlake, all agog. “By marrying Mary? Could that work? But Edward is the heir, unless he meets with an accident.”

“Something along those lines.”

Shardlake shook his head at the lengths Rich would go to for power. “First cake and next the crown … oh!”

“What?” I asked.

“I've just remembered: you haven't any clothes,” said Shardlake.

“Just?” 

“There's a few guards lying around who won't object if you want to borrow their clothes. Don't bother asking, they won't be up for talking.”

“Have you dealt with the Monk too?” I heard Shardlake ask, as I went in to a room to find clothes and a cloth to wipe the cake off.

“Yeah, it's all sorted. Nitro-9 beats cake every time. Now, do you know where I can get something decent to eat?” said Ace. 

“Yes, but forgive me if I don't show you anywhere where they serve cake,” answered Shardlake.

“After seeing the Monk's cake experiments, I'll all for smacking Marie Antoinette in the mouth.” Before either of us could ask Ace who she was talking about, she added, “But she didn't really say 'let them eat cake' so is there a Mrs Miggins' Pie Shop in this time?”

“You've heard of it?” I said, putting my head around the door. 

“The Monk's cakes would make safer eating,” said Shardlake in alarm.

I invited her back to my home instead. I had a feeling Tammy would like Ace.


End file.
